


Dark Whiskey, White Lies

by norgbelulah



Category: Justified
Genre: Drinking, Drunkenness, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-03-27
Packaged: 2017-12-06 15:55:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/737473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you miss me while I’m gone, Raylan?”</p>
<p>“No,” he says and Boyd smiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Whiskey, White Lies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [someotherstorm (rumbrave)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rumbrave/gifts).



> Forgot I posted this to a nvrleaveharlan comment fic meme back in Decemeber. Enjoy!

“Do you miss me while I’m gone, Raylan?”

“No,” he says and Boyd smiles. 

His drink is three fingers high. He takes a sip and licks his lips and smiles wider. His eyes smile too, large and sharp. “You sure?”

“Yes.”

Raylan’s glass is three fingers empty and Boyd pours him three more. He takes a gulp like a shot. Why not? Maybe he’ll get better at lying.

Boyd went away for the weekend. Family outing. Hunting in the mountains higher than the ones they live in, where the air is clear of coal dust and bad tempers. Except for whatever the Crowders bring with them. Such pollution seems to follow them about like a cloud.

Except Boyd.

Boyd’s temper is a short fuse, but it burns clean and it takes a bit of effort to light up. And the coal dust always washes off for Sunday church.

“Shoot anything?” he asks like he cares.

Boyd’s smile cracks, then mends itself fast and he says, “Not a thing.”

Boyd is usually better at lying. Good enough to fool Raylan anyway. Though maybe he wants to be caught out. “You shoot somethin’ other than deer out there?”

Boyd looks at his glass. “What did I say, Raylan?” He takes a drink and Raylan knows the stuff in it is three times as expensive as the shit they usually drink. Raylan’s got the same for his second round, though he started on the cheap stuff. Boyd’s buying now that he’s here and he’s got a wad in his back pocket that didn’t come from no deer.

Raylan takes another gulp and slides off the stool. He walks, deliberately, as he’s been drinking all through the short hour he’s been off shift, over to the juke. He slides a quarter in and punches a few buttons carelessly.

Some twangy country riffs come out of the speakers. He walks away without looking, so it takes him a minute to think of the song because his head is fixing to spin soon. 

It’s Hank Junior, his drinking song, or one of them. _Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound_.  


Boyd is smirking at him when he makes it back to the bar.

“You tryin’ to make a point?” he asks.

Raylan raises his eyebrows. “Maybe.” If Boyd was watching him, like he does, over at the juke he’d know it for a lie too.

He wants to ask why they can’t talk in straight lines. They keep curving around something, like the roads up the mountain. They’re gonna to take a turn too sharp soon. Raylan can feel it. It’s gonna to push them over the edge.

Boyd raises his glass and Raylan follows suit. They toast to silence. Drinking shit that goes for fifty a bottle like it’s goddamn water.

“Gotta drink that faster,” Raylan says minutes later, “you gonna catch up to me.”

“Want another?” Boyd asks like he didn’t say anything. Raylan’s drink is nearly gone.

He shakes his head. The room is spinning now and it’s Johnny Cash’s _Sunday Morning Coming Dow_ n playing from the corner. The world feels like a rotten carousel. Boyd’s looking at him with eyes too dark and a smile that’s just another lie. “Don’ waste it on me. I’m too drunk for sippin’.” Too drunk for more darkness in his glass. Much too drunk for more talking in circles.

Boyd buys him another anyway. Raylan asks for a water.

“I’ll make sure you get home,” Boyd says.

“Fuck you.” 

Raylan picks up the amber glass. If Boyd is gonna give him any more lies to sift through, Raylan’s not going to remember it now.

 

He’ll wake up to an aching head and a strange feeling in his mouth and Boyd next to him in the back of his pick up, emergency blanket thrown over them both.

Boyd will stir and give Raylan this look he can’t parse. Worried and hopeful at the same time. Raylan will frown and rub at his mussed up hair and say, “Okay, Boyd?”

Boyd will smile like a crack in cement and answer, “Sure, Raylan.”

And the next night they’ll toast to silence again. The cheap shit, this time.


End file.
